


A Seal Upon Thine Arm

by raven_aorla



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Except more like pre-Team as Family, F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Focused on the platonic ones, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Quynh and Nile and Lykon are discussed, References to Depression, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26872558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: Despite his wife's particular symbol of a delicate treble clef on his left wrist attesting to having found his romantic soulmate, Sebastien didn’t meet any of his other soulmates until two decades and several deaths later. He didn’t notice the tingle of the soul-seals on his right forearm at the time, dismissing it as yet more frostbite, more of the nightmare he’d fallen into.Or: a world in which platonic soulmarks are the ones thatreallymake the difference for Booker.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf & Nicky | Nicolò & Quynh, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Booker | Sebastien le Livre's Wife, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 19
Kudos: 169





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave._ \- From Song of Solomon, King James Bible version. 
> 
> This chapter is the ficlet itself. The second chapter will be a few headcanons that I came up with for this AU while brainstorming that wouldn't fit here.

At birth, Sebastien le Livre’s left arm was blank, while his right forearm already showed the monochromatic symbols of his platonic soulmates. Brothers and sisters of more than blood, ones whom he could trust with his whole heart and would irrevocably change his life. Romantic soul seals were chancy things and never revealed themselves with such convenient clues ahead of time.

He had an unusually large number of platonic ones, more than any other children he knew growing up. The platonic soulmate he would meet first was represented by a double-headed circular axe on his inner right wrist. Further up his arm was a pair of crossed swords, one straight and the other curved. Next to that, a longbow with a nocked arrow. Further still, a mysterious dark rectangle with a split string dangling from it. Finally, some kind of bird with a large wingspan. In total, five platonic soul seals when most people had only one or two. 

When he first caught his future wife's eye in the market square, he felt a tingling sensation in his inner left wrist. In nearly frantic excitement, he loosened his cuff and saw that a treble clef had appeared. She approached him with a smile like the sun and showed him the cracked-open book that had appeared on her wrist in exchange.

Despite his wife's particular symbol of a delicate treble clef on his left wrist attesting to having found his romantic soulmate, Sebastien didn’t meet any of his other soulmates until two decades and several deaths later. He didn’t notice the tingle of the soul-seals on his right forearm at the time, dismissing it as yet more frostbite, more of the nightmare he’d fallen into. The two men and a woman had found him limping through the Russian wilderness, dying of cold and hunger (once even wolves) after already dying of being hanged for desertion. Anna, Nicholas, and Joseph didn’t press him with questions until he was wrapped in a blanket in front of a fire and had downed a full bowl of soup with some bread. 

When he thanked them and told him his name, though, Nicholas and Joseph started laughing and Anna smiled. They bared their right arms long enough to show him that each of them had the book symbol, ringed with a black line to show that they’d found each other. The men also had the bow and arrow (ringed), the axe (ringed), the strange rectangle with the split line (unmet), and the bird (unmet). Anna had the crossed swords (ringed), the strange rectangle (unmet), but no bird. Her oldest platonic seal looked like a shooting star. Platonic symbols didn’t reflect whether the person was alive or not, but this wasn’t time to pry. 

Sebastien didn’t want to expose his skin to the cold, but he pulled back his sleeve the bare minimum and saw that the double-headed axe and the crossed swords both had new rings around them. “Wait, three of you have me, but I only have two of you. How can this be?” These marks were always mutual.

“It’s an odd situation,” Joseph said, sounding pleased about it. With his right arm newly bundled up, he now revealed his left wrist, as did Nicholas. Joseph’s romantic seal was the long, straight sword Nicholas wore on his belt. Similarly, Nicholas’ romantic seal was the curved sword Joseph carried. Meanwhile, Anna and Sebastien both had platonic seals that combined the pair of symbols as if the two men they represented counted as _one person_. Such things were spoken of in poetry, yes, but only as metaphor. 

“Perhaps it is because we killed each other with these swords many times before we noticed the change on our own skin,” Nicholas said matter-of-factly, as if this didn’t invite a thousand more questions.

But Anna didn’t seem terribly interested in discussing the fused-mark miracle and its implications. She reached a hand out towards Sebastien’s arm with a look of desperate hope. “You have another, at least. You must have it. Pull your sleeve back further. Up more...You have a bow and arrow?"

“Yes. Do you...do you wish to touch it? I didn’t see the same mark on your right arm, though I saw it circled on the gentlemen’s.” 

Cursing in languages he didn't know, she practically flung away her glove and tore off her sleeve. Her left sleeve. Her wrist was wrapped in a leather cuff, itself buckled closed. There was a bow and arrow, exactly the same, except after Sebastien observed it for a few seconds it turned into a solid black circle. 

“Did he just die?” Sebastian gasped. He’d seen romantic marks that had been blacked out by loss before, but never the exact moment it happened.

“ _She_ did just die.” Anna trembled, but it didn’t look like it was from cold. “Let me tell you about us and yourself. About Quynh. She had your seal on her too, as well as the one none of us understand.”

“I think it’s a rather square boat with a fishing line,” Nicholas said, brow furrowed. “But that is beside the point. Also nobody else agrees with me.”

Anna explained about their immortality, leading to the tale of Quynh’s fate, and Joseph put an arm around her shoulders while filling in details here and there. Nicholas silently refilled Sebastien’s bowl and tended the fire. Quynh’s seal on Anna’s wrist blinked back into existence for two or three minutes at a time, before turning into a black circle for about thirty seconds each time. No wonder she covered up something so bizarre to see and tragic to understand. He also realized, horrified, that his wife had witnessed his death and undeath several times by now. He suppressed his alarm in the face of Anna's greater grief.

“I’m sorry that this doesn’t guarantee I'll actually meet your love,” Sebastien said. Though it was rare, sometimes soulmates of both kinds never found each other at all. 

Anna shook her head. “Don’t be. I know whatever hope this gives is a qualified hope. It’s still good to see her seal on someone else."

“Welcome, little brother,” Joe said, wrapping him in a tight hug once he’d gauged there would be no resistance. Nicholas embraced him from the other side, and when they were done with him, Anna kissed his forehead.

(Years later, when the treble clef on his left wrist blacked out forever, at least he wasn’t alone. The marks the universe had left on him refuted any of his doubts. Whatever pain lay ahead, even as his sons would die in due course, he'd never be alone again.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's tagged "fix-it of sorts" because the indisputable proof that he's loved, and the implication that he needs to keep living for the sake of other people who will love him one day, help a lot with the bitterness canon!Booker develops. It doesn't fix his issues and make everything totally fine. However, it cuts through the feelings of being like an outsider that mental health issues can lead to believing in, regardless of how much genuine affection there really is, and makes it easier for him to trust the others with his true emotions. Additional headcanons coming up next.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, ideas for this 'verse that didn't fit in the fic itself.

1.

There is no hiding Booker's immortality from his wife due to the blinking wrist she experiences whenever he revives. However, she keeps his secret. They are reunited for a handful of years before he loses her to illness. Because of the proof that the immortals are now the people he needs to trust above all else, Booker agrees to their instructions to fake his death after his wife is gone. Thus he avoids some of the drama with his sons, who are either already dead or old enough to fend for themselves. His grief is less toxic than it would have been. 

2.

When he’s having a bad time, Booker rubs his hand over his platonic seals over and over, even if they are obscured under his clothing, to remind himself that he must be loved and understood, no matter what his mind is telling him. The others know to be extra supportive when they see him doing that.

3\. 

Booker doesn’t take Copley up on the experimentation deal. Although he finds life to be a burden much of the time, his bond with the soulmates he's found is rock solid, plus he can’t bear to rob his remaining ones of the chance to meet him. Instead, he tells the others about Copley, and they track him down and learn about his Conspiracy Wall and the good they really do. Threatening and guilt-tripping Copley into helping them isn’t too hard. 

4.

Their seals being mysteriously joined on others’ skin make Joe and Nicky somewhat confident that they will die their final deaths together. They still feel a sting when the other one is temporarily gone and a tingle when he revives. Of course they hate the other one suffering, as well. Booker's quiet jealousy about their lifelong romance fades considerably after he and Andy have to rescue them from being killed over and over to investigate their romantic seals' properties. 

5\. 

The cuff Andy wears while Quynh is under the sea doesn’t just serve to hide the blinking from view more securely than a mere sleeve or glove would. It keeps her from feeling its disappearance and reappearance each time. Leather, specifically, is known to “confuse” the physical sensation of a seal changing.

6.

They find Quynh before they find Nile. Booker’s seal gives them hope to try again periodically, whenever there’s a new lead or an update in technology that might help. Andy originally swore off constant searching after decades of it made her nearly lose Joe to a storm and Nicky to despair, but the group agree to this more moderate compromise. Using tech similar to what was recently used to find the wreck of the _Titanic_ , Quynh is finally fished out of the sea in 1987.

7.

Unsurprisingly, Quynh is not psychologically stable when they find her, but finally meeting a new soulmate she’d always wondered about helps her morale. The whole team takes a few years off from active missions to support her recovery and integration into modern life. 

8.

The debate over the most confusing seal on everyone's arm is a recurring joke for a long time. Andy points out that she and Quynh had the same problem with puzzling over what the book symbol meant in the centuries before bound paper tomes replaced tablets and scrolls. Booker wins six hundred Euros off Nicky for correctly guessing ahead of time that “rather square boat with a fishing line" is in fact Nile’s smartphone with earbuds plugged in. 

9.

Andy and Quynh have the shooting star seal that represents Lykon, but none of the others do. Joe, Nicky, and Booker's platonic bird seal represents an immortal who will join the family after the eldest two have died. Nile has some kind of bizarre squiggle as a platonic seal in addition to the book and weapons, but no bird.

10.

Nicky will, one day, win six hundred Credits off Booker for correctly guessing that the bird with the wide wingspan represents Nile's romantic soulmate, and moreover that she shares the mysterious squiggle seal as on Nile's right arm. Amusingly, the new team member won't know what that "box with curvy lines" is either, though the swords and the book will have remained timeless iconography. For his part, Booker will be slightly surprised to feel nothing but joy for his seal-sisters. Jealousy is cruel as the grave, but love is strong as death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last one can be interpreted as a stealth crossover if you like.


End file.
